大象传媒

Service in the British Red Cross in the London Blitz

By Charles Stan Vincent

When in 1938 the board of the printing firm where I worked became so apprehensive about the effects of bombing of London if war came that they decided to cover the cost of training as many employees as possible in air-raid precautions. I chose a first-aid course. As a consequence of instilled interest in the subject I joined a newly formed British Red Cross men鈥檚 detachment in Kensington, where I lived. Enthusiastic attendance at weekly meetings and training sessions became routine and I met many people of all ages and made many friends. Men under the age of 35 had to sign a form to denote willingness to serve with one of HM Forces medical services in the event of war: I was 18 and put in for the RAMC.

When inevitably war was declared we were assigned to various First Aid Posts in the district and were to report there when an air-raid warning was sounded. For about a year there were no air attacks. I did a weekly duty, which involved more training, discussions about what would be expected of us when the bombers arrived and some social chatter and activities. An end was put to that routine when in August 1940 the bombs began to fall and we became busy with the horror of that.. My assigned FAP was closed down and all casualties were taken straight to a hospital nearby, where they received skilled surgical treatment more quickly. I was assigned to that hospital, St Charles, North Kensington.

It was not long before the idea of waiting for the warning siren (鈥淢oaning Minnie鈥�) to sound became ludicrous, because every evening about 6 o鈥檆lock a raid started and, more often than not, was unrelentingly continuous to dawn the next morning. For me it was a matter of having a meal at home after my day鈥檚 work at HM Stationery Office, then cycling to duty at the hospital, often with bombs already crashing down. So life was turned upside down for me 鈥� and for everybody in Britain, especially in London and other cities that had to endure the wrath of Hitler after his plan to invade us was thwarted by our Battle of Britain pilots denying the Germans air supremacy.

The duty at the hospital was a 鈥渟leeping鈥� one: we were provided with a bed to lie on, but had to be ready to help if casualties were brought in 鈥� and if the raid was concentrated on our district there was no chance of sleep. In one of the early raids a small bomb fell in a street near the hospital, and when casualties started to arrive I was detailed to help in the operating theatre; of course, I was not qualified for this, but was requested to make myself useful by keeping a supply of sterile dressings constantly available. The theatre became a regular place of work for me whenever surgery was required, and I can never forget seeing the surgeons at work on many, many occasions and admiring and marvelling at the calmness of those surgeons 鈥� one man and one lady 鈥� as they carried on so skilfully even while bombs were still exploding all around. I can easily recall that I was quaking!

That first time in the operating theatre I watched the surgeon make over 70 incisions in a man鈥檚 face to extract pieces of glass. The patient had been foolishly looking out of a window when the bomb exploded in the road. The Blitz became more intense and as the bombs got bigger and were supplemented by so-called land mines (very large amount of explosive in a canister which came down on a parachute and exploded on contact, so causing a vast area of blast damage) I am sure the number of casualties increased. A couple of cases still come frequently into my mind and perhaps I may be forgiven for recounting them here. One was a man who had been playing the piano in a crowded pub in Shepherd鈥檚 Bush. He was the sole survivor of a bomb incident, and he swore he was the nearest to the explosion because the bomb went through the piano! He suffered terrible injuries, including a fractured pelvis, and he could not be evacuated to the country 鈥� as were most casualties, so that they did not have to endure more bombing; he was with us at least a week. I spoke to him each evening, and the remarkable thing was that, in spite of his battered body, he was unbelievably cheerful. The other case was far more grim and distressing: it was a girl aged about 10 who had been in an Anderson shelter that was blown out of the ground. Her mother and an aunt had been killed and she was brought to us with multiple injuries, the worst of which was the loss of one eye. That was horrible, but more poignant was when the surgeon decided that there was no hope for the other eye. A sickening feeling overcame me, for I could not stop contemplating her present suffering and her future life. What war can do! I even started asking (myself, of course!) whether it was all worth it 鈥� this horror, this terror, this sacrifice. I knew the reality was that millions of sacrifices would be necessary to rid the world of the Nazi tyranny and hellfire which affected innocents as well as the trained military organisations.

There were some amazing escapes too. One young man who lived with his mother in the top flat of a four-storey Victorian house went with all the other tenants down to the reinforced basement, their air-raid shelter, when the sirens sounded. Shortly afterwards he wanted a cigarette, but found that he had left his packet in the flat. He climbed the stairs and while in the flat a bomb hit the house. When he was somewhat recovered from the shock he found he was sitting atop a pile of rubble 鈥� it had been his house. Everyone in the basement was dead. In another incident a policeman flung himself to the ground when he heard a bomb whistling down, but he was hit by a piece of shrapnel when the explosion was only a short distance along the road. A jagged hole and an abrasion and a burn on the back of his neck proved that the shrapnel had gone through his steel helmet = had he not been wearing it his spine might well have been ripped down the middle.

I cannot of course write about the many casualties that were dealt with at just one hospital 鈥� or of the 鈥渘ear misses鈥� that I personally encountered 鈥� but I can say that the London blitz was without doubt for me the worst period of the war . The most impressionable, anyway!

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